President Donald Trump has announced that his long-promised “ gold card ” was officially going on sale, offering legal status and an eventual pathway to U.S. citizenship for individuals paying $1 million and corporations ponying up twice that per foreign-born employee.
A website accepting applications went live as Trump revealed the start of the program while surrounded by business leaders in the White House's Roosevelt Room on Dec. 11.
It is meant to replace EB-5 visas, which Congress created in 1990 to generate foreign investment and had been available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Trump sees the new version as a way for the U.S. to attract and retain top talent, all while generating revenue for federal coffers.
He's been promoting the gold card program for months.
The president said all funds taken in as part of the program will “go to the U.S. government” and predicted that billions would flow into an account run by the Treasury Department.
The new program is actually a green card, effectively offering permanent legal residency with the chance for citizenship.
The president made no mention of requirements for job creation for applying corporations or on overall caps on the program, which exist under the current EB-5 program. Instead, he said he'd heard complaints from business leaders who had been unable to recruit outstanding graduates from U.S. universities because they were from other countries and lacked permission to stay.
